. . . or click on the link here for Audio Player – CBS Radio News – May 20, 1999 – Gordon Skene Sound Collection
May 20, 1999 had everyone scratching their heads, wondering just where the sanity had gone. A month after the mass shootings at Columbine High School, another similar shooting took place, though not with the same results. But this time it was Heritage High School in Conyer Georgia, where a lone gunman – 15 year old Anthony T.J. Solomon, opened fire on classmates, wounding 6 students, one critically.
The shooting was one more episode in a baffling series of School rampages, where kids with guns held students hostage and scenes of police in combat gear and administrators attempting to calm frightened teenagers and hysterical parents played out on live television. And all the while, the handwringing over our gun-crazed society, and pledges of stricter gun laws and calls for tighter security ran over and over with mind-numbing repetition. And the threats of more such episodes and the fears of additional Columbines were now becoming reality.
The other news for this questionable day; a group of Black students staying in an Adams Mark Daytona Beach hotel for a Black College Reunion in April were filing suit against the hotel, saying they were charged higher prices and made to pay for their rooms well in advance by Check or money-order, were forced to wear orange wristbands and constantly harassed by security and Police officers on the hotel grounds. They went on to claim their rooms were stripped of pictures and their phones were turned off and were charged $50.00 if they wanted guests in their rooms, which none of the White guests were asked to do.
And The Justice Department said it was a global conspiracy to fix the price of Vitamins. Two Vitamin manufacturers, Hoffman-Laroche and BASF agreed to plead guilty and pay fines totaling $725 million in what the Justice Department said was a scheme to artificially inflate the price of products which were consumed by every American on a daily basis.
Just a small slice of the news this May 20th 1999, as reported by CBS Radio.
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